


The Curious Case of The Discarded Condom

by AssvengersArsemble



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, Fluff, M/M, brief bruce and sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6410149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssvengersArsemble/pseuds/AssvengersArsemble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha, Clint and Steve get just a little nosy about Tony's love life. Tony finds it extremely amusing they can't see what's right under their noses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Case of The Discarded Condom

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergent in that Clint does not have his bizarre forced family and that Tony and Rhodey have been dating for a long time. Also pre-AOU.

There had come a point when living semi-consistently with more than five other people when you start to know a bit more about the people you live with than you want to. The Avengers were adapting to living with each other a little more with each passing week. Clint stopped wandering in his underwear as much as he would have while living alone, Steve learnt to carefully hoard any food that he’d bought for himself (not that he minded sharing, but when you bring home a box of twelve donuts, leave them on the counter for ten minutes when you go to get something and coming back to an “I O U a dozen donuts” for the fifth time then even Captain America starts to lose some selflessness), and all generally restrained any messy or gross habits (“Clint Barton, I saw you pick your nose now get a damn tissue, you animal,” Natasha only had to bark it at him on three separate occasions before he got the drift.) Things were starting to be plain sailing, well as plain sailing as living in a tower with other superheroes gets.

Which is why it’s a disgusting shock to find a used condom by a trash in the communal floor.

“Who did this?” Natasha grimaces, holding it with some tongs from the kitchen which will now be subject to a thorough scrubbing. 

“Gross,” snorts Clint from the sofa, he prods Steve, sitting a few feet away, with his foot, “C’mon, Steve, put ‘em in the trash."

“I always put them in the trash,” he raises an eyebrow at Clint, “We all know who has the most bad habits here.”

“Harsh. How do we know it’s not been used by you, Nat?”

“Why would I try to find out who it was if it was me? I would’ve just put it in the trash,” she responds, sounding as scathing as possible.

“Well it’s not mine, not Steve’s, not mine, Thor’s got business in myth land, Bruce is ace, Sam’s home with family, gotta be Tony’s right?” Clint suggests.

“Tony’s seeing someone?” the super soldier asks, “I thought he was single.”

“He doesn’t really do the playboy thing,” Natasha frowns, “He wouldn’t just bring a stranger into the tower for sex.”

The three frown contemplatively as Natasha sits on the sofa beside Clint, swatting his hand away from touching the tongs she still held aloft in her hand with soiled condom dangling from it. The lift door’s _ding_ fills the room with JARVIS announcing: “Colonel James Rhodes”. Rhodey rolled his eyes, having told Tony before that being introduced into the tower _every single time_ with such formality was ridiculous. Of course, this spurred Tony onto keeping the feature.

All three of the Avengers on the couch peaked their heads over the sofa to see Rhodey standing there. He snorts quietly at the image of the three heroes peeking over like groundhogs out a burrow at him.

"He'll know," Clint mutters, but not nearly as quietly as he thinks he does.

"I'll know what?" Rhodey questions, approaching them.

"Who Tony is seeing?" Steve elaborates, "Natasha found that-" he nods towards the dangling condom, "-besides the trash and we narrowed it down to Tony."

Rhodey felt a slight embarrassed expression creeping onto his face, glad the three were all rather amusingly distracted the the discarded contraceptive.

"I wouldn't think Captain America would be so nosy," he grins after a moment, "Why do you three care?"

"Curiosity," Natasha admits and Steve nods, looking a touch ashamed for attempting to invade a teammate's privacy though probably not ashamed enough to dispel his interest.

"Blackmail maybe," Clint shrugs shamelessly.

Rhodey looks between them bemusedly, “Did you ask him?”

“No,” Steve answers bluntly, “But we didn’t really have a chance yet.”

“Maybe you could ask him?” the redhead presses gently.

“I’ll ask him when I see him.”

“Workshop,” Natasha answers pre-emptively, though really Rhodey asking is a formality in itself, he would've guessed the workshop anyway.

Rhodey nods, “As usual.”

He turns on his heel into the lift and descends to the workshop, leaving the trio to continue their conversation.

 

oOo

 

“Colonel James Rhodes,” JARVIS announces pitifully under Tony’s deafening music.

Music that Rhodes has warned him many, _many_ times is far too loud and is “definitely damaging to his hearing”, to which Tony’s response was “your whining is definitely da-” abruptly stopping when he realised there could be consequences to being such a smartass.

"Tony, is this a secret?" Rhodey asks, the moment he enters Tony's workshop.

It’s not something he’d really considered too much, despite just how long he and Tony had been together. Having been best friends for almost a decade before things took a more romantic turn, everything had seemed to click into place when they first hooked up. Though not without a few curveballs along the way. The most significant being when Tony became a superhero. Now Rhodey was used to not always knowing what to expect from his often reckless and live-in-the-moment (while simultaneously planning future technology years in advance) boyfriend, but the superhero thing was definitely a turn out for the books.

"This project? Yes. Highly classified. Want me to tell you all about it?" the goateed man grins over at him.

"You know what I mean. And I'll pass for now."

"You're missin' out," Tony half sings before looking to him more seriously, "So wait what is a secret?"

“Me and you.”

Tony thinks hard for a moment then shrugs, “You’re not the flaunting it type.”

"Well I'm not really openly out," Rhodey says, perching himself on the nearest stool, "The people who matter know."

Tony walks over and rests his hands on the other man's knees, "Do you want the team to know?"

"'The team' look at you all grown up and cooperating with other people.”

"I'm a big boy now, sharing my toys, my tower, my personal space, pretty sure Clint stole my toothbrush so that too."

"That's disgusting,” he laughs.

"Babe, when you kiss me you're kissing Clint Barton, are you grossed out?" Tony grins, looking utterly unashamed.

"Appalled," Rhodey rolls his eyes sarcastically.

“Soooo,” Tony trails, “Wanna make out with me now or?”

“Really?” comes the deadpanned response, “Really you’re asking me that now?”

“I thought it was appropriate,” the scientist grins, pressing a rather itchy bearded smooch to his partner’s cheek before standing away and looking at him with a slightly tilted head and a more serious tone to his voice, “So what brought that on? The secret stuff?”

“You left a condom by the trash after the other night.”

“Oh my god,” Tony chokes a laugh, “Who found it?”

“Natasha. She, Steve and Clint are theorising who your mystery partner is,” Rhodey answers.

“And they didn’t suspect you?”

“They asked me to ask you.”

The noise Tony makes is almost inhuman, a sort of bizarre strangled laugh.

“You’re here all the time, we spend a lot of time alone together, how can they _not_ know?” he laughs.

Rhodey shrugs, “I guess we’re not really very ‘couply’ in front of people. We act more like best friends, they think we’re more ‘bros’ than boyfriends.”

Tony leans in as close as he can and clasps Rhodey’s hands dramatically in his own, earning him a curious eyebrow raise in response. There’s an unusual degree of intensity behind Tony’s stare as he almost _gazes_ into the other man’s eyes, just a little bit too romantic movie for what Rhodey’s used to from his boyfriend at this point.

“James Rupert Rhodes, will you be my brofriend?”

A loud exasperated sigh fills the room and Rhodey covers Tony’s mouth with his hand, “You are the most ridiculous human being I have ever met.”

The scientist licks his hand, eliciting a groan from Rhodey as he pulls his hand away, being sure to wipe it on Tony’s shirt, of course.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing? And like you haven’t told me that many times before? And also like you don’t love it,” Tony grins.

“You're lucky that it’s almost endearing.”

Rhodey kisses him before he can try and fish for more compliments, then Tony shows him all of his Top Secret project.

 

oOo

 

A few hours later, Tony enters the communal living room as Natasha, Steve and Clint are sitting around eating Chinese food on the sofas by a large coffee table (littered with an assortment of opened and unopened boxes of food, along with some bottles of beer) chattering away as they likely had been for hours. With Rhodey called away by work Tony had decided to go bother his nosy teammates, winding up some Avengers could sometimes be more interesting than the finer machinations of repulsor technology sometimes. Plus he was super hungry and Jarvis had alerted him to the arrival of a delivery man ladened with takeaway food.

"It's not Pepper, turns out they were just friends," Natasha is saying to the men as Tony pads over quietly, barefoot from working in the lab (which actually is probably against many safety regulations.)

"How'd you find that out?" Clint asks.

"When we kissed at Tony's birthday party."

"Nice," says Clint through a mouthful of rice and curry, leaning over to Natasha with his hand extended for a high five which is rejected as the spy instead takes a swig of her beer.

"Heard you're all gossiping about me, trying to figure out who I've been sleeping with?" Tony beams smugly, as he sits and snatches a box of Chinese food from the assortment on the table.

"Is it a robot?" Clint asks matter of factly.

"What?"

"Is it a robot?" he repeats, as though it was as casual as asking for the time of day.

"Are you asking if I fucked a robot?" Tony raises an eyebrow at him.

"Yes."

"Why would you wear a condom to fuck a robot?"

"Viruses," Clint grins. Beside him Steve stifles a laugh and Natasha sips a beer to cover her smirk.

"You're gross, Barton," groans Tony as he scoops a mouthful of noodles into his mouth. He continues after swallowing, "No, I am not fucking a robot."

"So who is it?" Natasha asks, "Why the hush-hush?"

"Honestly? It wasn't even hush-hush, but seeing you all so curious and nosy I'm not gonna tell you."

"Sorry, Tony," Steve eventually speaks up, "It wasn't our place to be theorising about your love life."

Tony raises an eyebrow, "Did you think a big ole Captain America apology would make me spill? 

Steve's face flushes slightly, looking like a guilty dog from one of the many viral dog videos that Clint and Bruce love, Tony notes. Turns out even the man who's more well known alter-ego is the world’s biggest literal embodiment of anger still loves cute YouTube animal videos. 

"Wow."

"C'mon, just tell us," Clint groans.

"No, this is funny, the three musketeers trying to work out who Tony's man is," he snorts.

 "So it's a guy," Natasha grins.

 "Fuck."

 

oOo

 

After a few days the novelty seemed to have worn off, as novelties tend to do when you get distracted by 12 hour missions, apocalyptic threats and a near all-out war over a broken coffee pot in the kitchen that no one takes responsibility for; before Natasha declares it an “act of God” and that the passive aggression has to end just to make everyone shut up. In order to bring around some peace and unity within the tower, she also suggests a marathon of a sitcom they can all watch together, along with as much pizza as you can feasibly ask for to be delivered, and it is a suggestion received graciously and without any disagreements (a rarity amongst the team at times.)

 Rhodey comes over again which, as it isn’t an uncommon occurrence and with the waning curiosity over the condom incident, raises no eyebrows between Natasha, Clint and Steve. The group settles into whatever space they can and, somehow despite the size of the room, it gets cosy fast.

So no one notices at first the way Tony is almost sat on top of Rhodey.

Well not _quite_ on top, but there Tony is, leaning into Rhodey’s lap with one arm, propping his head up lazily. Laziness soon devolves into deliberate annoyance on Tony’s part, casually leaning up to try and steal bites of pizza as Rhodey eats above him.

“Tony,” Rhodey mutters lowly.

“Yeah, babe?” comes the quiet response, complete with a smug grin.

"Stop stealing my food."

"Stop not feeding me."

"I wasn't aware you were a toddler. Do you want the pizza by plane?" Rhodey mocks, "Open wide here comes the aeroplane," swiftly smacking Tony gently in the face with a slice of pizza.

Tony grunts in response, a small amount of pizza clinging to his face, "I preferred the train going into the tunnel metaphor."

"Nat, why aren't we that close?" Clint nudges her jokingly.

“Because I don’t love you like James loves--” Natasha trails off, the next sentence from her mouth seeping with a tone of _How The Fuck Did I Miss That_ , “Oh come on.”

Clint just gawps. “Rhodey and Tony?”

Tony awkwardly perches himself up over Rhodey’s shoulder, in what is definitely an uncomfortable position for the pilot to support.

“You know for the having the best aim in the world you sure missed the mark there,” Tony grins, shifting his position and offering a high five to Rhodey, “Come on, that was a sick burn.”

Rhodey complies with a grin, "I mean it was no Rhodes level wit, but it was okay."

Tony turns his attention back to the three nosy Avengers on the sofa.

“I cannot believe you were all so oblivious!” he gloats, “Especially you, Miss Superspy.”

“Tony, shut up, or so help me I will take off a shoe just to throw it at you.”

“Do you often want to throw footwear at me during conversations?”

“It’s not uncommon,” Natasha smirks.

“I would like to say, we didn’t know because we are not invasive,” Clint chirps, “We are respectable teammates who respect boundaries-”

“So stop stealing my underwear,” Sam interrupts, “I know it’s you.”

“No comment.”

Finally Steve speaks, directed at the pair tangled up on the floor, “I’m just happy you’re both happy.”

“And that we didn’t put money on it,” the redhead quips.

 “That too,” Steve admits.

 Tony snorts and slips back into a comfortable position on Rhodey’s lap, swiftly catching another slice of pizza in his mouth and mumbling an “I love you” with a mouthful of food as Rhodey gently shoves his face away.

 

oOo

 

After a few hours Bruce eventually politely dismisses himself to bed, followed by Sam (groaning something about needing plenty of sleep to even remotely keep up with Steve in the morning), then Steve. Rhodey and Tony are the next to go, with Clint making some vulgar gesture towards them with an enormous smirk.

Tony sits on the bed for once, instead of his usual melodramatic flopping, while James unbuckles his belt and shimmies out his jeans, something that never failed to amuse Tony, who thought it a strange habit of undressing and one that James had done for as long as he’d known him. He watches him for a moment before speaking. 

“You know, Rhodey, I was thinking...that time I nearly died--"

“Which time?” James deadpans.

“The first time. The time in Afghanistan and the humvee,” Tony answers curtly, “It made me think, I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”

“You know, with your attitude, I’m not sure that’s a compliment to me,” James retorts, smiling softly at the other man.

Tony elicits a mock gasp, “How dare you, I have an incredible personality and it’s a glorious reflection of you.”

“Yeah, glorious sure,” comes the laughed response.

After a short pause, Tony asks, “Do you think that’s a thing a lot of people have to elaborate? Which time they nearly died?”

“Probably not, no.”

There's a few moments of silence, not uncomfortably so, but noticeably there before one of them makes another sound.

James heaves a sigh, “I preferred when your lack of self-preservation used to manifest itself in behaviour that damaged your reputation instead of how it manifests now-”

“As an awesome superhero,” Tony answers with a finger gun.

“As acts of reckless acts endangering of your own life.”

“Potayto potahto.”

"You're literally the worst," Rhodey groans. 

"I love you too," Tony beams.

"You damn well should."


End file.
